Following his first full year on the job, Citi Wealth Head Andy Sieg is seeing his compensation rise by 15% to roughly $13 million.
A proxy statement Citi released on Wednesday acknowledged 2024 was a "challenging year for the wealth business," and praised Sieg for building "significant momentum."
"Mr. Sieg joined Citi as Head of Wealth in September 2023," according to the statement. "He has set a new path for the business, has made many of the necessary, material changes to improve performance and brought in significant new talent."
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Sieg received a $1 million base salary, a cash bonus of $4.8 million, $3.6 million in performance shares and $3.6 million in deferred stock award. Sieg's total payout for 2024 was up from his pay the previous year, which totaled roughly $11.3 million for the three months he worked for Citi in 2023, after being recruited from Merrill Lynch Wealth Management. That "golden handshake" sign-on deal included about $11 million in cash and equity incentives on top of his base salary.
Net assets 'North Star'
Sieg was brought to Citi to revive the flagging fortunes of the megabank's wealth unit. He quickly set a priority on building wealth management revenues by bringing in net new assets — calculated as assets brought to a firm minus assets moved elsewhere. He's also sought to reduce costs and bring in fresh talent to the firm's leadership ranks.
Those changes have shown signs of paying off in recent quarters. In January, Citi executives declared the firm's wealth business had reached a turning point and reported its net new asset haul had risen by 40% to $42 billion in the previous year. Many wealth managers look to net new assets — which Citi executives have taken to calling their "North Star" — as a means of measuring performance irrespective of market gyrations.
Citi's proxy statement credited Sieg for "lowering costs, and improving revenue generation within Wealth in 2024, including significant growth in Net New Investment Assets."
Citi's asset haul for last year brought its total for client investment assets to $587 billion, which includes assets under management, as well as trust and custody assets. That figure is still dwarfed by the amounts held by other large firms — Morgan Stanley has $6.2 trillion under management in its wealth unit, for instance. But Citi's 2024 asset total was nonetheless up 18% from the year before.
$13 million table stakes?
Phil Waxelbaum, the founder of the recruiting firm Masada Consulting, said Sieg's compensation is "table stakes" and isn't reflective of any particular accomplishments.
"If you wanted someone with Andy's résumé and experience, that's what it's going to cost," he said.
Waxelbaum said it's too early to say if Sieg has succeeded in the job he was brought on to do. Waxelbaum said he doesn't see Citi doing much with recruiting in the U.S., but noted that a huge part of the firm's business is overseas.
"We're here myopically asking, 'How many advisors did he get in Omaha?'" Waxelbaum said. "But we aren't paying attention to whatever traction they may be getting in Singapore."
Rick Rummage, another industry recruiter and the CEO of The Rummage Group, said he has spoken with Citi managers in recent months about their desire to start hiring experienced advisors. The transition deals Citi is willing to pay recruited advisors are reasonably competitive, he said.
The trouble, Rummage said, is that Citi is coming off a period when it wasn't aggressively recruiting. As a result, the Citi name isn't among those that immediately spring to mind for either recruiters or advisors looking for a new home, he said.
"They are notorious for getting in the game and getting out of the game and getting back in," Rummage said. "And they have probably changed the structure of their wealth management deals more times than the next five companies combined over the last 20 years."
Looking to existing clients for AUM
Sieg has said his plans for bringing in more assets have less to do with finding new clients and more with mining assets held by existing customers. Speaking at the BofA Securities Financial Services Conference in February, Sieg estimated Citi clients have $5 trillion held at rival institutions or off to the side for other purposes. His goal, he said, is to persuade them to move more of that over to Citi.
"When you think about major U.S. wealth management firms, a lot of the growth is driven by new client acquisition, not surprisingly, because advisors tend to have a very large share of wallet with their core clientele," Sieg said. "This business has a different starting point. We've got tremendous reach around the world. Clients, as I said, have been with Citi for decades. But in aggregate, we have a very low share of wallets."
Sieg has also sought to reduce costs within the wealth unit. A slide he showed in February indicated that quarterly costs in the wealth division had fallen by about 3% year over year to $1.57 billion by the fourth quarter of 2024. That was partly driven by staff reductions that had brought the wealth unit's total employee headcount down by 1,800 to 12,300 by the end of the year.
Private bank overhaul
Citi's proxy statement notes that Sieg is responsible for overseeing three units within the wealth division: Citi Private Bank; Citigold Private Client, which works with clients with $200,000 or more in assets; and Wealth at Work, which provides services to law firms and professionals of various stripes.
The proxy statement says the private bank "underperformed" last year but other "parts of the franchise have performed well and made an upward turn under [Sieg's] leadership." Citi's private bank reported $2.4 billion in revenue for 2024, up 2% from the year before.
Ida Liu, the head of its private bank, announced last month that she was leaving, and her position was later eliminated. The bank was quickly reorganized and placed under the supervision of four global regional heads.
Taken together, all of Citi's wealth units meanwhile saw their revenues rise by 7% year over year to hit $7.5 billion in 2024. The firm saw its net income from wealth management surge by 139% to just over $1 billion.
Tech and leadership changes
Sieg has acknowledged that Citi needs to improve technology within its wealth unit. In his speech in February, he said many of the firm's systems are "best in class" but haven't been set up in a way making it easy to switch from one to another.
Citi's proxy report credits him for leading a "project to improve the client experience by focusing on the full end-to-end delivery of investment solutions, resulting in improvements to our alternative booking process and training, more seamless transferring of client assets and other enhancements."
CIti's proxy also praises Sieg for "strong external talent acquisitions for the Wealth business, adding considerable depth to his leadership team." Among other recruits, Citi has brought on Kate Moore from BlackRock to be its chief investment officer, Dawn Nordberg from Morgan Stanley to build stronger ties between its banking and wealth divisions, Keith Glenfield from Merrill to be its head of investment solutions and Marc Turansky from JPMorgan as its head of investment advisory.
Sieg is one of five Citi executives whose compensation is reported in the firm's proxy statement. The top 2024 payout went to CEO Jane Fraser, who received $34.5 million. Citi Chief Financial Officer Mark Mason got just over $15 million in total compensation, Head of Markets Andrew Mortion received roughly $21.5 million and Head of Banking Viswas Raghavan got $22.6 million.
